Four Minutes Later
by blue-eyed-cow
Summary: "Why aren't I dead yet? Why aren't I with you? I should be. It's been more than four minutes, you know." George remembers a promise he made with his twin as kids. And now, he has broken that promise. Post-War. One-Shot.


**A/N: Welcome to Four Minutes Later! Ah, writing this story made me sad. It's another George angst story. I know there are so many of these, so I'm just going to give this a shot and see if anyone likes it. **

** The first part of this story takes place when Fred and George were seven. I know I should probably italicize the flashback stuff, but I just hate italicizing sections. I don't know why. I think you'll be able to tell what's a flashback and what's not, though.**

** Thanks! On to the story!**

** Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

It had been a perfectly normal night. Well, as normal as it gets for us. We had just been sent to our room for setting off a stink bomb in the kitchen, ruining the dinner our mum had been working on. Of course, keeping us in our rooms couldn't stop us, even at age seven. We could probably easily escape if we wanted to, but we were both tired and didn't feel like putting in the effort.

So I had flopped down onto my bed, Fred doing the same in the bed next to mine. We were silent for a moment, thinking about how we could improve the bomb, when an annoying buzzing rung out from the window. I sat up, glaring in that general direction, rather pissed off at the thing that had interrupted my thoughts.

A fly was flying around the window, bumping repeatedly into the glass, and buzzing non-stop. Annoyed, I hoisted myself out of bed and snuck over to the window. The dumb thing hadn't seen me coming until it was too late.

I brought my hand back, and then smashed the fly into the glass screen. Now it was nothing but a puddle of guts. I smiled, happy with my work. Those things could be hard to catch, even if they _were _stupid.

"You didn't have to kill it."

I jumped at the sound of my twin's voice, ringing out from next to me. I hadn't noticed him until now. He was staring at the fly remains with almost a sad expression on his face.

I raised an eyebrow. "Eh?"

"I said: you didn't have to kill it. There were other ways to shut it up."

I gave him an incredulous look. _I_ was usually the one to disagree on certain matters, so one of the facts that surprised me was that Fred actually seemed to be the responsible one in this situation. The other thing that surprised me was that Fred actually _cared_ about some annoying bug.

"Why do you care?" My voice wasn't harsh; just confused.

He let out an annoyed sigh, as if the answer were obvious. "Well, normally I wouldn't. But I was just thinking… what if the fly…"

I waited, not too patiently, for my brother to come up with the right words.

Finally, he finished the sentence. "What if the fly had a twin?"

My eyes widened. That was a thought that had never really occurred to me before. I never really thought about anything but humans having twins.

"Can flies even have twins?" I asked. "Aren't they born from an egg or some rubbish like that?"

"I dunno…" Fred scrunched up his face, like he always did when he was thinking hard. "But if they can, then you just killed a twin. Which means that, somewhere, the fly's twin must be really sad right about now."

Another thought that hadn't occurred to me. "Yeah, I guess he must be pretty sad that we killed his twin…"

There was one of those very rare awkward silences between us. They practically never happened; we always knew exactly what to say to each other.

"Maybe…" a though formed in my head. "Maybe we should find the fly's twin. Maybe we should kill that fly, too."

It was Fred's turn to look confused. "Why?"

I shrugged. "Well, maybe that fly wants to be with his brother. If he misses his twin so much, why doesn't he just follow him to Buggy Heaven?"

The corner of Fred's lip twitched. "Buggy Heaven?"

I narrowed my eyes. "You know what I mean."

Fred contemplated on that for a second. Then, completely off topic, he said in a voice I rarely heard him use, "I wouldn't be happy if my twin died, either."

I struggled with words. Sure, we shared everything with each other. But we never really talked about things as serious as this. "I wouldn't be happy, either. I'd really miss you, Fred."

He nodded sadly. "It wouldn't be fun, to be a twin without your twin, would it, George?"

I shook my head. "Not at all, Fred."

The room was silent. I missed the sound of the fly buzzing.

Then an idea started to form in my head, and in a few seconds, I was ready to purpose this idea to Fred. "Hey, I have an idea."

"Hm?"

"Well, you were born four minutes before me, right?"

"Right…" Fred said slowly, not quite seeing where I was going with this.

"So that meant you had to spend four minutes without me, right?"

"Best four minutes of my life." He joked.

I ignored that. "So, does that mean that I'll die for minutes after you? So that I'll spend four minutes without you, too? Seems fair, don't you reckon?"

It took a moment for Fred to digest what I had said. Then his eyes widened again. "So, what your saying, is that I'm going to die four minutes before you? So I'll have to wait four minutes for you in heaven? And then… you'll be there with me?"

Talking about our death was slightly nerve-racking, but I nodded non-the-less. "Yes. That's what I reckon."

We were lost in thought for another moment.

"Fred?"

"Yeah, George?"

"I also reckon that those are gunna be the worse four minutes of my life."

A smile slid its way onto his freckled face, which was perfectly identical to mine. "Yeah, me too."

That left us both smiling.

"So, it's a promise then? That you're gunna die four minutes after me?" Fred held out his hand, as he often did when we made deals or promises.

I shook it without hesitation. "I promise."

Fred looked satisfied as we let our hands drop. "Good. Don't keep me waiting, George." He winked.

Then he looked around the room and suddenly seemed to remember what had started this conversation.

"I think that fly's twin must have been born four minutes after him, too." Fred said in a matter-of-fact tone. "So we better go find him before our four minutes are up."

Recognizing this as something fun to do, I eagerly agreed.

We spent the rest of the night searching around our tiny room for the fly's twin, so we could put him out of his misery and he could join his brother.

We never found him.

* * *

I was kneeling at the foot of my bed. In my room. No, in our room. Or was it just my room now? I didn't know. I don't know why I cared so much, either. But I did.

My head was in my hands, as it often was. I was locked up in my room, as I had been for the past three weeks. I was crying. This, too, was nothing new.

The pain I felt never left. It never went away. It never subsided; never dimmed. It was always there, blazing like an out-of-control fire within me. It hurt. It hurt like hell. It bloody hurt so much. And I couldn't do anything about it. I was too much of a wimp to try to put the fire out. So it only got bigger and bigger, too far out of my control to do anything about it.

Other people had tried to put the fire out. Tried to talk to me. To tell me it was ok. Were they bloody _mental?_ How could this possibly be ok? I knew they were hurting, too, and I knew they were just trying to help. But it was wasted efforts. The fire would never go out, never. It was blazing away in the pit of my stomach, burning everything inside and leaving me hollow. A hollow shell of what had once been a twin.

_Fred._

_Fred._

_Fred._

_Oh, why, Fred? Why? Bloody hell, Fred! You're bloody dead! Dead! _

I felt an un-voiced scream building up in the back of my throat. It wanted out. I wanted to scream, scream, scream until the fire was out. But I knew it wouldn't work. The fire would only get bigger.

To my left, a small buzzing sound could be heard over my sobs. It was the buzzing of a fly.

That was when I remembered the promise.

And the fire only got bigger.

We had been so young… so foolish… we hadn't known what we were talking about…

Was Fred waiting up there, for me? Was he mad at me for breaking the promise?

I couldn't even bring myself to think about it without more tears leaking from my covered eyes.

And, before I knew what I was doing, I found myself whispering.

"Why aren't I dead yet? Why aren't I with you? I should be. It's been more than four minutes, you know."

Something was building up inside of me. Something that wanted out. So I kept talking.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I broke the promise… I shouldn't be here… I should be with you… I'm sorry…"

In the background, the fly still buzzed. That was when I snapped. Did that fly have a twin, too? Was he mocking me? Was that buzzing laughter; laughing at my pain? Laughing at the fact that he had a twin, and the crumpled man on the floor did not?

I knew, at this point, I must have been completely insane. I was smart enough to know that flies didn't have twins, and that the fly was far too dumb to even know what was happening right now. But I didn't care. Because, right now, I didn't want to be the only one to suffer.

So I shakily got up, unsteady on my feat, and slowly made my way to the window, as I had thirteen years ago. Just like that day, I brought my hand back, and then smashed the buzzing insect into the window. All that was left was a puddle of goo.

Somewhere, the fly's twin was mourning.

And I cried again. I cried for the dead fly. I cried for the fly's twin. I cried for Fred.

I knew I must have been completely off my rocker at this point, crying for a fly, but I didn't care. No one could possibly understand how I felt. No one but me.

And the fly's twin.

But the fly's twin didn't have a choice. He had to keep going, didn't he? He couldn't let the fire inside of him gobble him up. He had to stay strong.

Something inside of me changed. Maybe I wasn't quite alone.

And again, I found myself whispering to my deceased twin.

"I'm sorry I broke the promise, Fred, but there are other people here who need me as much as I need them. I miss you. Tell the fly I said sorry."

And with that, I stood up again from where I had, once again, fallen. Then I slowly made my way to the door, leaving behind me the window, now stained with fly insides. I never looked back.

For the first time in weeks, I opened the door.

It had been more than four minutes, but I would have to wait a little while longer. And so would Fred.

**A/N: The End! I guess this was a little bit of a happy ending. Sorta. **

** I know I must sound really weird with all my talk of flies having twins and all that stuff. I hope you at least liked it a little.**

**Please review! Reviews make me very very happy! **

**Thanks for reading!**

**~blue-eyed-cow**


End file.
